In with the Old, Out with the New

Funny thing about owning a little old crooked house... whenever you see some other old crooked doodad, you think to yourself, "Hmm... now wouldn't that look cute in my old, crooked house." What you fail to realize at the time is that, while abounding with charm and character, your old, crooked house is woefully inefficient, and as this fallacy seems inherent in the old and crooked, you inevitably end up with a flawed, albeit charming, home furnishing/appliance/etc. Andy and I have fallen victim to this lunacy -- er, interior decorating dilemna. Here are a few of our recent old crooked purchases:

This dresser dates to the turn of the century, during the Arts and Crafts movement. It's gorgeous in person, with just enough dents and dings to make it perfect for our humble old house. It's also missing what must be the most underrated invention of the 20th century: roller drawers. Bummer. If centuries of young couples before us survived, I suppose we can, too.


We ended up buying this gem at the farmers' market... because after all, that's what one purchases at a farmers' market, 100 year-old luggage. (It's a long story...) We needed a good spot to store our blankets, quilts and afghans; this does the trick perfectly. Unlike our roller-drawer-less dresser, this chest boasts one of the biggest things to hit luggage since the burlap sack: wheels on the bottom.


And finally, these two little numbers. While we were in Michigan, I noticed some old maps in a local shop window and thought, "Hey! That's what we could do for our blank wall space on either side of the south window in our bedroom. Find old maps of Maine and Michigan, frame them and hang them..." I got a little into the idea, and I manged to find maps of Maine and Michigan from the same atlas publisher, with the same edition date, 1856. You'll remember from our earlier post re: the house's history that this house was built between 1852-1854. Pretty close. Neat fact about TC circa 1856? It was then called Grand Traverse City (after Grand Traverse Bay, a name that survives today). Michiganders may already know this fact, but it was all new and exciting to me.

**These pictures brought to you courtesy of our newly installed recessed lighting in the master bedroom. One recent purchased that is neither old, crooked nor inefficient.